Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Seminar notes 9.12.09

The life sold through advertising is incompatible to real life, under the process of a commodity culture the images of the dream appear to be real.

Commodity fetishism

Reification

False need

Symbolic association

Ideology and stereotype

False need

Makes us think we need something we don’t

Novelty – newness, up to the minute, new = good. To have the highest status.

Symbolic association

Belonging – branding, social inclusion, have something to have acceptance.

Idols – desire for a dream life or status.

Commodity fetishism

Define ourselves through things, out understanding of the world is defined by what we do and own.

Alienation of our life, relationships are distanced. The reality of the thing is irrelevant.

Fetishism the substitution of a thing for what is real.

Reification – a tendency under commodity culture.

Things stop appearing as things and take on a different meaning, personality, more human.

People under commodity culture become more objectified.

Ideology – system of ideas, a way of thinking about the world. A system of ideas or beliefs that disguise the true nature of the world in a society. Ideas are created by the dominant strata of society but portrayed as being ideas of everybody.

Religion – a system of ideas or beliefs.

Eg – beliefs of a political party. Making, distortion or a selection of ideas to reinforce power relations trough a creation of false conciousness.